Pages

Friday, 27 April 2012

One should approach the chopping of onions in the same manner as one approaches divorce.
With your eyes wide open.
Shutting your lids mid-stream will leave you blind and bleeding.
It's also similar to running a marathon, keeping in mind that once you start it's go go go to the finish.
Dexterity, and a sharp knife are also helpful.

Make sure the phone is off the hook and you are not interrupted. I suggest headphones or a sign on the kitchen door that reads - 'Mummy's chopping onions', deafness is an asset here.
Assemble all necessary implements on a chopping board ie onions and sharp knife.

WARNING: Your eyes will water, you'll want to rub them, but from step3 on DON'T EVEN BLINK - 'my watery eyes have healing magic' will be your mantra. If you reeeeeally have to a quick, light flutter of the lids might get you through.

1. Assemble all necessary implements on a chopping board ie onions and sharp knife.
2. KEEPING YOUR EYES OPEN top and tail the onions generously to remove tough and difficult to slice ends.
3. KEEPING YOUR EYES OPEN cut onion in half lengthways (north pole to south pole) and peel off the outer skin, lay each half flat on the board.
4. KEEPING YOUR EYES OPEN cut each half into 2mm slices.
5. KEEPING YOUR EYES OPEN quickly lay 3-4 semi circular rounds on top of each other and and chop quickly in an arc. Repeat until all onion is chopped.
6. Keep your eyes open as long as possible until they don't water anymore - just like divorce.

I'll leave you with a card my SOB (Significant Other Being) made for me this year for my birthday...

Grounds for Divorce?

^^

=~=

PS - I haven't been through divorce but I separated from a live in boyfriend with whom I shared a bank account and a very nice antique hall stand...

Sunday, 22 April 2012

I've heard that I can save $4000 a year if I give up smoking.
If I gave up drinking I'd save twice that again.
It makes me wish I drank and smoked so I could give them up and have an overseas holiday.
Do people with expensive habits know how lucky they are?

It's tempting to go off the deep end and develop a cocaine or heroin dependency so that I could be rich after rehab.
I know - I'm joking about a serious thing and probably shouldn't.
I think the reason I haven't developed a drug habit is because I'm high on Jesus and high on life ha! I've never wanted to be dependent on anything so much that I'd rob my mother to pay for it, which is why I have avoided water skiing - I wouldn't like to develop boat dependency.

I've tried acid, cannabis, hash, wine, spirits, liqueurs and chocolate and can imagine having a habit for each, that's all.

The nuns at my Catholic primary school encouraged the students to give up something once a week for lent. Lent lasts for 46 days, about seven weeks.

Every Monday morning I placed an order for lunch from the school canteen. I always ordered a meat pie and a packet of crisps. Just before the lunch bell (a real bell that someone had to shake up and down in the air, you know, dingalingalingaling) a metal basket would arrive and one of us hungry children would call out the names written on each lunch filled paper bag.

Every Monday for the seven weeks of lent I would put my unopened bag of crisps into the nun's poor box. I didn't care much, in fact it was probably a calculated lental giveaway proposed by my mother.
After four weeks my teacher, Sister Lillian asked me if I'd like to give up something else for lent.
I think she was sick of chips.

Saturday, 14 April 2012

It's a four thirty pm.
We're going to a barbeque at a friend's house at six pm.
I'm making Oriental Fried Noodle salad.
My husband and boys are doing the stuff they usually do, you know - stuff.

I've finely chopped the cabbage and green onions and made the dressing. While the pinenuts are roasting on the stove I decide to make a tsatziki dip, feed the dog, find dvds to return to my friend and dress. Upstairs, changing my clothes, I smell the smell of things gone wrong...

I have to have pinenuts in my fried noodle salad - it's not the same without them.
It's four forty five pm.

My husband and boys are still doing the stuff they usually do, you know - stuff.
I jump in the car and drive the ten minutes to town. I get a parking spot right outside our only supermarket.

The aisles are full of holiday makers going soooooo slooooooow and blocking my fucking way.
I want to whack them.
I want to whack them and yell crazily 'DON'T YOU KNOW I'M IN A HURRY!' and 'MY NEEDS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOURS!' with no feeling in my extremities - Pinenut madness.

All I wanted to get was pinenuts but I have a list of six fricking items.
I find five of the items on my list and go to the 'interesting ingredients that make cooking painful' aisle.

I want to yell again 'WHAT THE FUCK! - IS EVERYONE IN THIS GOD DAMN TOWN MAKING ORIENTAL FUCKING FRIED NOODLE SALAD?!!!'

Thursday, 12 April 2012

Great to read all your news. So nice to hear you're enjoying your granddaughters. I can't even let myself
entertain the thought of grandchildren, worried I might jinx myself.

It's good to know you're healthy and well. I think
we don't often hear of the successes with beating cancer because nobody reports
good news. My friend who had bladder cancer said cancer is cells mutating
through constant damage and puts her cancer down to smoking a lot when younger
as it's common in women who do so.

The boys and I went on an overnight walk on Easter
Saturday into a steep gorge by a river. We camped Saturday night by the water and were due back Sunday night but made a few bad mistakes and decisions and took the 'scenic' route out. We ended up spending Sunday night on the side of
a narrow, steep ridge with little drinking water and 700 metres above the river. In hindsight I realize we weren't in danger as we could have struggled back
down the ridge to the river in the morning and retraced our steps to find the track, but being inexperienced with such a situation, we were very scared we were in real trouble. After a restless night, in the morning son no 2 went up the
ridge and found the track - only about fifteen minutes walk away.

Although I feel quite silly about us getting into a
fix in the bush since I'm supposed to know what I'm doing, I'm proud we did
so well in a semi-survival situation.

When we were trying to sleep on our 45 degree leafy bed (with our feet against trees to stop us sliding downhill) I
said to son no 1,'Every day life stuff doesn't seem all that hard now'. 'Yeah,' he said, 'I'll never think a college assignment is difficult again'.

Funny though, now I'm back to normal life (with all it's crap), being stuck on a ridge in the middle of nowhere sounds good.

It's all a matter of perspective.

I hope I have a granddaughter one day, love Julie.
XO

PS The view is always better from the top...

Saturday afternoon.

Monday morning.

Post Script: Hello and welcome to Tarynwho is doing a Jelly good job of the A - Z challenge over at Taryn in Crazyland!

Thursday, 5 April 2012

Hello and welcome to Pish Posh and Elle!
It's always exciting to have new visitors - I hope you enjoy my blog.

On my walk this morning I encountered this little bastard beauty...

It
is called a Processionary Caterpillar because besides dangling on a
thread from a tree overhanging the middle of a road where people walk their
dog in the morning (dodged 1 a minute today) they also do this...

ie walk along with their face in each others arse.

If
one of them doesn't feel the face of the one behind it in it's arse it stops
and waits until the slow poke catches up. Aren't they clever? It must be
a big responsibility to be the one at the very front.

I
don't care much - if they want to live their life like that then fine,
but every hair on them is an irritant to the skin that leaves an itchy
welt lasting up to days. The hairs on both the caterpillar and the moth
it pupates into fly away in the breeze and can cause asthma when
inhaled. One year, before we moved here, the locals had a plague of
them. They put
their bed legs in tins of kerosene to get a good night's sleep.

Why the fuck are they here?

They walk around doing their stuff like they have a purpose - as if their life has meaning. I envy them their conviction.

Sometimes it helps to think about these hairy caterpillars when I ponder the meaning of life and the reason for my existence...

A
couple of months ago I advertised for a guinea pig friend to come and
live with our Gouda. She knew she was coming to a home that was
committed to the freedom of piggies and that she would free range - because I
told her so. She was with us three weeks before something got her in the
night. Being a white piggy she would have been easily seen in the dark and now I
realize I should have coloured her hair for camouflage.

Last
week I bought another piggy to keep Gouda company, a younger piggy, but
she's keen to learn from her elders. She is a caramel colour and
because she came into our lives close to Easter I'm calling her Cheeses.

All
our piggies have been called after some sort of fromage. First we had
Coon, then Colby (both boys). Gouda was next and the white one came with
a name already (something silly that wasn't a cheese), so she was doomed from the
start.

Cheeses is a good name because if Cheeses disappears tomorrow (Good Friday) I know she'll be back on Sunday.

About Me

Illustrator, artist of the funny peculiar variety and one upon a time commercial artist.I live on the east coast of Australia on a bushland property with my husband, two sons, a dog, a guinea pig, and some chooks.Prints of some of my artworks can be purchased from my Fine Art America page.My website is at www.juliehutchinson.com.auMy Etsy store feedingthecat